Bacterial Elimination of Sulphates from Mine Waters

• Published in: Chemical engineering transactions 2013-01, Vol.35
• Main Authors: A. Luptakova, I. Kotulicova, E. Macingova, J. Jencarova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2283-9216
• DOI: 10.3303/CET1335142

Sulfates can be found in almost all types of water, in form of simple anion SO42-. Together with hydrogen carbonates and chlorides, sulfates are the main anions in natural water ecosystems. Sulfate concentration in characteristic groundwater and surface water ranges from ten to hundreds mg/L. Nowadays, the importance of the control of sulfate concentration in waste water increases. Contents of sulfates in rivers increase especially by waste water discharge, which comes mainly from metallurgical, mining, chemical, textile industry. Sulfate concentration in these waters ranges from tens to thousands of grams per liter. There are many technologies for sulfate removal, used in the waste water treatment, including biological-chemical processes. One of these methods is the reduction of sulfates by sulfate-reducing bacteria. The object of our study was to verify experimentally the possibility of using sulfate-reducing bacteria to remove sulfates from mine water originating from coal mine Cígel (Slovakia). The main objectives were: sulfate elimination from mine water influenced by SRB, initial sulfate concentration effect on the bacterial sulfate reduction process and elemental sulfur preparation from hydrogen sulfide produced by bacteria.